Measure, tweak, and keep the winners

Today marks the start of the spring planting for early vegetables in Portland. Plants that can take a bit of cold and wet still.

But that's not a hard and fast date. Each plant has different needs and the weather is never perfect.

That's why I already have 524 seedlings started outside.

Some are ones I started a week ago to see if I can start early.

Others have been growing for three months already because they actually want freezing temperatures and snow. (One even wants fire to start growing but I bought that one already started, probably not a good idea to take a blowtorch into the garden...)

But all of them are tests.

Some have failed. Some still haven't succeeded or failed yet. Some became snacks for squirrels. And some have worked very well.

This early in the season I have time and space to try again so there's very little risk. Just some time and effort planting and making notes. The upsides are that I can get some plants going outside of the busy season.

But they are still just tests.

What I'm learning this year will pay off in future years (e.g. sow poppies early because they'll grow like crazy in the cold). I'll keep testing and trying new things though, that's part of the fun of gardening (and business).

You should approach your customer retention activities the same way.

Test out a few. Use ideas that seem to work across the industry and measure them in your store. Try ideas that sound crazy but just might work. Measure, tweak, and keep the winners.

The rewards of finding what works for you will outweigh any costs of testing. Plus you'll be learning every step of the way.

Launching your campaigns to specific customer cohorts is a good option, even if you don't have the numbers for a true A/B test. If you want help tracking, I've just improved the cohorts in Repeat Customer Insights so you can easily drilldown and see the performance of each cohort over-time. It's great for monitoring.

Eric Davis